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Adrian Bejan and the Constructal Law 

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The imperative in fund-raising and in all business enterprises is to make the right things happen and overcome inertia.  As Marvin Bower, founder of the modern-day McKinsey has observed, “Success is based on a few simple things.  The challenge is that you have to do them.”

As a life-process, fund-raising is driven by the laws of physics.  The giving of money represents motion on the part of the donor; the amount of the gift represents the magnitude of that motion.  It is extremely helpful to take out your #2 pencil and write down the obvious: the event of a gift results from an action or series of actions.  As the great physicist Adrian Bejan has explained, “Nothing moves unless it is driven, forced, pushed or pulled.”

Bejan, the J.A. Jones Distinguished Professor at Duke University, has developed The Constructal Law that explains what is necessary for all systems, animate and inanimate, to develop over time: “For a flow system to persist in time, it must grow with freedom such that it continuously offers easier and greater access for what flows through it.”

Whatever flow systems are your responsibility I urge you to dig into Adrian’s work and explanations.  The three books highlighted below are a great way to begin.

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